Essential genes encode proteins thought to be crucial for the survival of an organism. However, the role of essential genes in human disease and their suitability as drug targets is less clear. Here, we use a recent catalog of nearly 9000 known essential and nonessential genes to evaluate their involvement as therapeutic targets in human diseases. We find that essential genes are more likely than nonessential genes to play a part in specific therapeutic areas such as cardiovascular diseases and neoplasms. We also find significant differences between essential and nonessential genes among protein classes relevant to drug discovery. Taken together, our analyses suggest that the essentiality status of a potential new target is an important consideration in drug discovery.

必需基因编码的蛋白质被认为对生物的生存至关重要。然而，尚不清楚基本基因在人类疾病中的作用及其作为药物靶标的适用性。在这里，我们使用了近9000种已知的必需和非必需基因的最新目录，以评估它们作为人类疾病的治疗靶标的作用。我们发现必需基因比非必需基因更有可能在特定的治疗领域（例如心血管疾病和肿瘤）中发挥作用。我们还发现与药物发现相关的蛋白质类别之间的必需基因和非必需基因之间存在显着差异。两者合计，我们的分析表明潜在的新目标的必要性状态是药物发现中的重要考虑因素。